Shooter ‘hated’ YouTube
Father says his daughter was angry that she was no longer being paid for her videos
Awoman who believed she was being suppressed by YouTube and told her family members she “hated” the company opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters in California, wounding three people before taking her own life, police said.
Investigators do not believe Nasim Aghdam specifically targeted the three victims when she pulled out a handgun and fired off several rounds in a courtyard at the company’s headquarters south of San Francisco yesterday, police said.
But a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said that Aghdam had a longstanding dispute with the company. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case, said Aghdam used the name “Nasime Sabz” online.
A website in that name decried YouTube’s policies and said the company was trying to “suppress” content creators.
“Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!” one of the messages on the site said. “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”
Aghdam “hated” YouTube and was angry that the company stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, her father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group.
On Tuesday, he called police to report his daughter missing after she didn’t answer the phone for two days and warned officers that she might go to YouTube, he said.
Officers in Mountain View — about 50km from YouTube’s headquarters — found her sleeping in her car in a parking lot early yesterday but let her go after she refused to answer their questions.
Aghdam didn’t appear to be a threat to herself or others, police spokeswoman Katie Nelson said. She would not say if officers had been warned that Aghdam might have been headed to YouTube headquarters.
Authorities had said the shooting was being investigated as a domestic dispute but did not elaborate. It was not immediately clear why police later said the people shot were not specifically targeted.
One of the victims — a 36-year-old man — was in critical condition, a spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital said. A 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and a 27-yearold woman in fair condition, the spokesman said.
YouTube, the world’s biggest online video website, is owned by Silicon Valley giant Google, but company officials said it’s a tight-knit community. The headquarters has more than a thousand engineers and other employees in several buildings. Originally built in the late 1990s for the clothing retailer Gap, the campus south of San Francisco is known for its sloped green roof of native grasses. — AP